The Catholic Counter-Reformation

/ Point 1. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

Point 1. In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

The Phalangist is baptised in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Catholic by birth or by conversion, but always of tradition – for no one is born a foundling in the order of grace – he belongs to the Roman Church by God’s irrevocable will and gift.

1. Faithful to this commitment, he keeps the Catholic faith, frequents the sacraments, takes part in the Church’s liturgy and submits to the Church’s commandments in both his private and public life, faithfully and without false shame.

2. The Phalangist sees in his religion the absolute value of his own existence: the way, the truth and the life. For him nothing can surpass or equal this Christian mysticism, still less contradict it, neither science, nor the arts, nor power and honours, nor self-interest, nor the pleasures of this world. Any failing in this principle is for him an error and an offence.

3. The Phalangist is supernatural because he orders his earthly life in accordance with the glory of the world above; because he judges this present age by the traditions of the past wherein appeared the constituent mysteries of salvation; because he finds no permanent dwelling here below, but awaits, beyond death and the history of this world, the coming of the eternal Kingdom in all its fullness.

4. The Phalangist develops within himself the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity and the moral virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. He lives habitually in that peace and joy promised to Christ’s disciples.

He is of the Church with his whole being, honoured and happy to be a Phalangist.